For Pascal Dumont, Quebec’s Printemps érable came down to a series of fours: 40,000 digital frames shot, 400 hours spent selecting the best, 40 photographs printed up for display and sale.

Oh, and more student debt.

The Université de Montréal graduate student became a photojournalist during the massive demonstrations against tuition hikes that rocked the province last year.

It cost him thousands of dollars in digital camera gear — a whack of new expenses on a credit card already overloaded with fees he’s paid for his studies and supplies.

But at least Dumont has something to show for it.

He’s framed his favourite photos for a 10-day exhibition — now extended by a week — at a Plateau Mont-Royal gallery and printed up a glossy colour catalogue.

Each limited-edition photo is accompanied by a short text by a classmate or other UdM student, as well as professors like Daniel Turp, the former federal MP and PQ MNA.

Partly subsidized by UdM’s student federation, the show is called Le Grand Souffle — like a breath, or blast, of fresh air, as the student movement was called.

The images show a surprising maturity for an inexperienced photo-reporter, many of whose pictures were exclusives when first published last year.

One reveals a huge red square that briefly hung from UdM’s main tower last March (Dumont was tipped before it was taken down). In another, from April, cagouled students try to batter down the rector’s door with a wood billboard (they failed). In another, security guards are framed against a classroom blackboard that says “Scabs!”

Some pictures offer glimpses into the personalities of well-known public figures: Newly elected Premier Pauline Marois gives a derisive smirk at a news conference last November announcing a summit on higher education, and UdM rector Guy Breton holds up a censorious hand last February to prevent his picture being taken.

There are action shots of police and demonstrators, young families banging pots in the street, SQ and TV helicopters in the skies above downtown, a bird’s-eye view of the massive March 22 demonstration along Sherbrooke St. (Dumont got that one by outrunning a security guard to get to the top of an apartment tower).

And there’s a coy self-portrait, showing Dumont reflected in the ski goggles of a masked protester staring at a long line of helmeted riot police.

“This was one of the biggest student movements in Canadian history, and for me it was important to take stock of it in photos,” said Dumont, 28, who shoots for the UdM student newspaper Quartier Libre and is doing his master’s degree in international studies, specializing in Russia.

Dumont got the photo bug in the fall of 2011 after taking a course at the university taught by veteran Le Devoir photojournalist Jacques Nadeau. At the time, all Dumont had was a cheap old SLR film camera.

“In a class of 20 students there’s always one or two who are really good — and Pascal was really the best,” said Nadeau, author of Carré rouge: le ras-le-bol du Québec en 153 photos, published last summer.

“He was fast, he worked harder, he wasn’t scared to get up close and take people’s pictures full-on. A photojournalist needs to do all those things. And he’s got a head for business, which also helps.”

Dumont’s timing was good. When the course was over, the student association he’s part of went on strike. With no papers to hand in, he had plenty of time to shoot.

“The first student demonstrations began and I was quickly thrown into the centre of the action,” Dumont recalled. “I started covering everything.”

He bought himself some expensive equipment — $6,000 worth — starting with a Nikon D700 digital camera and upgrading to an even more professional Nikon D4.

“I was working 60-hour weeks, sometimes 70 hours. I’d get anonymous calls telling me where things would be happening, and I’d be there. I concentrated totally on my photography.”

Dumont augmented his stipend at Quartier Libre with freelance work for Montreal magazines like Urbania and dailies like Publimetro newspaper in Santiago, Chile.

Some of his work ended up uncredited on the web. There wasn’t much he could do about it, but at least his bachelor’s degree in management at UQAM taught him how to get better organized: He developed a website, printed up business cards, got regular freelance gigs.

Besides the student paper, Dumont now also shoots for the website of CISM-FM, the university’s student radio station, as well as the literature quarterly Lettres québécoises.

Next summer, he hopes to return Russia, where he’s been before, to do a photoreportage on the rise of Islam in the Caucasus.

But for local news on a grand scale, nothing will equal the Printemps érable.

“I’ve had help from sponsors, but it’s cost me a lot,” said Dumont, who hopes to tour the show across Quebec and also make the catalogue available at independent bookstores.

“For now, I put most of it on my credit card. Maybe someday I’ll be able to pay it off.”

Le Grand Souffle has been extended through Feb. 2 at Galerie Kôzen, 532 Duluth St. E. The 48-page catalogue costs $15 ($10 for students); photos range from $40 unmounted to $250 framed. On the Web: www.pascaldumont.ca or facebook.com/pascaldumontphoto

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